European Travel Site Uses Intelligent Virtual Agent to Deliver Personalized Support through Facebook

Virtual agents become a first point of entry for online marketing, sales, and support from multiple access points, including social media

EMERYVILLE, CA – February 15, 2012 –VirtuOz, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) for online marketing, sales, and support, announced today the launch of VirtuOz IVAs for Facebook. In addition, the company announced that Voyages-sncf.com, a European travel website, has deployed Léa on their corporate Facebook page as part of their online customer engagement strategy to increase customer satisfaction and boost favorable wall posts and recommendations. With Econsultancy reporting that less than 5 percent of questions asked on corporate Facebook pages are answered, the travel agency has leapfrogged the competition by providing a virtual agent that not only directly answers customer questions, but also can channel issues back to live agents to achieve 100 percent customer resolution.

The news comes on the heels of a recent study conducted by Zendesk that found that 62 percent of consumers have used social media for customer support, with the most active users in the retail, telecommunications and travel/hospitality industries . The same study found that Facebook is the largest social media vehicle for consumers to interact with businesses with 3 times the volume of other leading social media venues combined.

“Originally considered marketing’s domain, social media is becoming an important customer engagement channel across all functions including sales and support. Listening and monitoring social networks is no longer sufficient,” said Pam Kostka, chief marketing officer of VirtuOz. “Deploying an IVA on a corporate Facebook page helps companies move beyond passive social service to active social service. Through the IVA for Facebook, companies can quickly respond in a personalized way to customer requests, comments, or inquiries and provide service through one of the world’s most popular points of entry to the Web for 800M+ active users.”

With the availability of the IVA for Facebook, companies can now use VirtuOz intelligent virtual agents to provide 24/7 support and service over any Web channel: mobile device, Website, or social networking site. The IVA for Facebook is a complement to existing self-service and human-assisted channels, including contact centers and live chat.

AvailabilityDeployed as tab within a company’s Facebook page, VirtuOz Intelligent Virtual Agents for Facebook are available now. To learn more, go to http://www.virtuoz.com/solutions/overview.html.

About VirtuOzVirtuOz is the leader in Digital Customer Relationships, enabling large and mid-market enterprises to use Intelligent Virtual Agents to provide world-class online marketing, sales, and support channels, ensuring a high quality user experience while improving operational performance. Recognized by the American Business Awards, Best in Biz 2011 and Tech Awards Circle, the company’s award winning intelligent virtual agents offer companies a new channel for online self-service that delivers the best possible customer experience at one-tenth the cost of traditional channels. VirtuOz solutions combine best-in-class virtual agent solutions with best practices across agent development, deployment, and optimization to deliver predictable and measurable results. Intelligent virtual agents are predicted to become the new standard for customer interaction in the next few years. VirtuOz leads the market for successful use of intelligent virtual agents, having processed over 166 million conversations on behalf of its customers in 2011 and with the largest number of live enterprise intelligent virtual agents for Global 2000 companies including PayPal, Michelin, SFR, H&R Block, and Symantec. More information about VirtuOz can be found at www.virtuoz.com.

###VirtuOz is a trademark of VirtuOz, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.